This last week has been just awesome! We have been pretty busy with investigators, members, and everything else. First off, I´m an orphan now. My daddy, Elder Agapito, was suddenly assigned to Quito. In fact, three of the five missionaries in Coca are gone right now. Elder Yarbro and Elder Richimondg left last night to Lago and then to Quito because Elder Yarbro has been having some troubles in the mission so far. So pray that he doesn´t go home and he stays in the mission somewhere. Elder Richimondg has a zone leader conference in Quito too so he won´t be back until probably Wednesday. So for a couple of days, it´ll just be Elder Yarbro´s companion, Elder Magalhaes(That´s Portugese), and I handling two sectors. or in other words, all of Coca by ourselves. Bring it on! He actully speaks Portugese, Spanish, and a little bit of English, so he´s pretty useful. And whenever I can´t understand something in Spanish he tries to tell me in English and it usually helps. I´m not sure if Elder Richimondg will bring back with him another missionary or if it will be us three until the next change. We´ll see...
Our zone and district are the same. Coca has(had) a little over 30,000 people and 5 missionaries and Lago(3 hours north) has 4 missionaries. Whenever we have district meetings, we switch off on who travels where. Last week we went to Lago and after the district meeting, I went on a split with Elder Murphy. He´s like 6´5, 240 lbs, and is a gringo(Like me!). He´s a really cool guy though. He´s from a humble home near Los Angeles. He´s a really good teacher too. We taught this guy named Oscar about the restauration and I learned a lot from it. He also answered a lot of questions that I had that my native companions couldn´t answer. He really helped me out a lot. We brought a member along with us while we were contacting. I can´t remember his name but he was 13 years old and wore a little plaque that said: "futuro misionero". Adorable, right?
I´m glad my dad figued out how to use google translate to send me a letter half in Spanish this week. Maybe I´ll write the rest of this letter in German and see how well he can translate that...Oder vielleicht hat er nicht wirklich wissen, Spanisch oder Deutsch, wie er claimes haha. I dig the Halloween video! I don´t think Ecuador really celebrates Halloween but maybe I´ll carve a pineapple or something haha. And I´m sorry to hear Rocky is having stomach problems, if it will help him, tell him so do I haha. I was pretty sick like 5 days ago but I feel perfect now. Our apartment is located by the Napo river by the southwest corner of Coca. It´s strait down the street from our little church on the corner of San Miguel and Espejo. It takes like 2 minutes to walk to church. There are no sister missionaries in Coca or Lago. I dont´t know the exact reason why but this is a really different area in the mission.
As you could have guessed from the account: Yes, I have a camera now! YES!! It´s a blue sony camera with 16.1 megapixels, 8x optical zoom, and it came with 8 GB of memory. I bought it for $213. I don´t know if that´s a good deal or not but all the other cameras like this one were all $300. So I scored! I´ll send pictures today. No monkeys or machetes though. Unfortunatly Elder Agapito is gone now and he has the pictures. Right before he left I asked him to try to send them to me but it wouldn´t work. I later remembered that they have a rule that you can´t send Emails to other missionaries in your same mission or the Ecuador Quito misson. So I think it was blocked. Which kinda really sucks since I didn´t have a camera for 2 weeks and all I wanted was a couple of pictures. Oh well. I have others.
Another thing! I almost baptized someone already! He name is Glenda. She´s 31 years old and has a husband who is a member and a 4 month year old son named Franchesco. I was going to baptized her in the Coca river. Her husband is a good member but he slips sometimes so she asked me 5 days before if I´d baptize her. Two days ago, just before we were about to step in the river the brach president stoped us cause the river is really shallow until like 50 feet out. And I guess it´s a rule that I can´t go out that far being a missionary so I had to take off my white pants and give them to the branch president so he could do it. Ani´t gunna lie, I was pretty disappionted for the rest of the day. Then I realized that I was being selfish. I only participated in 2 of the many lessons to get her prepared and it doesn´t matter who does it, as long as they´re worthy. What´s important is just the fact that she is baptized and confirmed. And she was. Plus the branch president and his family are awesome just like my mission president and his wife. They are very kind and work hard for the members in Coca. Plus, this is Ecuador, People are ready to accept the gospel here. I´ll have more chances in the future with investigators that I actully helped them from the beginning, come to Christ.
We have two more investigators that are near baptism, Diana and Patricio. Patricio loves the Book of Mormon and is the older brother of Jiero(I just figured out that´s how you spell his name). Plus his older sister that is married is also a member so she´s been a lot of help too. As for Diana, she lives with her brother, Pedro. Pedro is a member and he´s been a really big help in teaching Diana. We taught her about the Restauration, the Book of Mormon and the Gospel of Jesus Christ this week she keeps inviting us back. Both investiagators came to chruch this week and their baptism dates are next week, I believe.
Tell Jared good luck in Drivers Ed, and take the dang permit test!!! Haha. Also tell him to be prepared for his mission more than I was. Read Preach my Gospel( Especially chapters 3,5,and 10) Read the Book of Mormon and memorize scriptures, It´ll really help him for the future. Tell Kak, Savannah, and Kylie I said, "Hola." Los amo ustedes! Buena suerte con sus vidas y me recuerde en sus oraciones!
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